Your Story #125

Prompt: Write a short story of 650 words or fewer based on the photo prompt above. You can be poignant, funny, witty, etc.; it is, after all, your story.

Email your submission to yourstorycontest@aimmedia.com with the subject line "Your Story 125."

No attachments, please. Include your name and mailing address. Entries without a name or mailing address with be disqualified.

Unfortunately, we cannot respond to every entry we receive, due to volume. No confirmation emails will be sent out to confirm receipt of submission. But be assured all submissions received before entry deadline are considered carefully. Official Rules

Entry Deadline: CLOSED

Out of around 100 entries, WD editors chose the following 5 finalists. Vote for your favorite entry using the poll at the bottom of the page.

Nanny’s hand hovered over the block tower. When she placed her square on top it wobbled towards me. As I held my breath hoping it didn’t fall, they all crashed to the floor. Clapping, I giggled. This was more fun than sitting in church. 

I had tried to be a good little boy. Swinging my feet against the pew, because my stupid new shoes pinched my toes, made a thunk sound. Mommy had leaned over me and whispered for Nanny to bring me to the nursery. 

Stacking the pieces for another game, I stopped when I heard Mommy’s high heels clacking on the floor. 

“Having fun?,” she asked.

I smiled. Mommy patted my head. 

"Still not talking?” she asked. 

“It’s like the cat has his tongue,” Nanny said.            

Why was she saying that? She knew that we didn’t have a cat. We had Goldie, my fishie. But he died because we forgot to feed him. Mommy had put him in a paper bag and placed him in the freezer. 

“I’ll take care of him later,” she had said. 

I nodded. I was practicing being quiet, like a good little boy. Sitting down to join me she arranged the blocks by their shapes. Nanny left us. 

“How’s my peanut feeling?” Mommy asked. 

I shrugged my shoulders. She hadn’t called me peanut since the big men came to the apartment. Straddling Daddy, one of them pounded Daddy’s chest. I tried to stop him but he shoved me aside. After ten punches, as high as I could count, they took him away on a cot. Like the one Grandma slept on when she came with gifts from Santa. 

“Why is Daddy sleeping?” I’d asked. 

“Be quiet, like a good little boy”, one of the big men had said. So, I was. Maybe then Mommy wouldn’t go to sleep, too. 

“Want to play outside?” Mommy asked now. She pulled my play shoes out of her purse. 

I nodded. As soon as they were on I bounced in them making them squeak. Yesterday, that sound made my mother cover her ears. So, I shoved them aside, saying hush, be silent. Be good little shoes.

Holding hands we left the nursery and walked to the playground entrance. There stood a man with balloons in all the colors. Red was mine and my daddy’s favorite. That’s because we both liked cherry licorice. I pointed. 

“Peanut wants the red one?” she asked.

Sliding some change into my outstretched hand, Mommy pointed to the metal can. I plopped them in, one by one. Plunk, plunk. "Sh," I said to the coins. Too noisy. The balloon man looped a long ribbon around the end. He handed it to Mommy, and she bent to wrap it around my wrist and started to tie it. Before it was knotted, I jumped in excitement, knocking it out of her fist. It floated away. 

“I'm s-so-so mad,” I stuttered. 

I stomped my feet. Oh, how I wanted to pop all the balloons. Suddenly I wished more than anything that Daddy was here.

“We can get you another balloon,” soothed Mommy.

“No. I want Daddy,” I mumbled, teary-eyed. “Why is he still sleeping?”

“Oh honey, he died, like Goldie,” she said.

“Daddy’s never waking up and coming home?” I asked.

“No, sweetie, his heart wore out.”

“Do you have a hurt heart?’

“Yes, but only because I’m sad,” she said. Mommy held my hand to her chest. Thump, thump, it beat. 

“See how strong?” she asked. 

“Try mine,” I said. I placed her hand on my chest.

“I feel it,” she said. “I’m glad you’re talking now.”

“I thought if I wasn’t quiet you would go away, too,” I said.

“I’m doing everything I can to stay healthy,” she said. 

“Like playing?”

I took her hand and pulled her to the swings. This time, I knew not to let go. 

So I’m sitting on this fancy patio downtown with Molly when she looks over my left shoulder and does this, like, double-take. She’s got her hair done up nice in curls and they give this little shimmy that is pretty comical. Her eyes narrow and her hair bops around like a slinky.

“What?” I finally ask her when she keeps staring.

“That man. We saw him last year too. I know it.”

Christ, now I gotta turn around and see.

Yep, true story. There’s a guy across the street. Holding a red balloon by the string.

“Roger, don’t you remember? We made up funny stories about him, and then he just let go of the balloon and walked away.”

“Here’s where you’re wrong, honeybun. We sat inside last year on account of the rain.”

“OK, but that means it was two years ago, which makes it even weirder. Do you think he’s a pervert or something?”

I turn to study the guy.

“Trench coat? Hunched back? Velcro sneakers and a red balloon? Yeah, could be a pervert,” I agree while digging into my rigatoni. Although why a pervert would be at an intersection this busy is beyond me. Passing buses continually rattle my pint glass. Admittedly, I’m not up to date on pervert-tactics.

“Roger,” she says with a whine. Oh, good grief. “Go see what he’s doing. This is bothering me.”

“Why should it bother you? Want to trade seats? Just ignore him.”

“Roger!” and she hisses this. “There are children around. Would you just go see what he’s doing?” Ok, ok. I’m on it.

I dodge traffic across the street and come up next to the guy. Looks like a boomer, snowy-haired, tough face. Trench coat bulging like he’s made of ill-fitting Legos.

“Hey Bud,” I say with my deep, “Hey Bud” voice. Like I mean to do business, guy to guy. “I gotta ask you about that balloon.”

Shit.

I should have thought this out on my way over. Ask about the balloon? Like he’s a balloon salesman? Or he is a pervert and I’ve just acknowledged him with some sort of double-secret pervert code. Then he turns to look at me with these deep blue eyes, like a whole ocean is peering out.

“I come here every year,” is all he says.

“Well yeah, that’s why I came over. We recognized you from last year. I mean two years ago," and I point to Molly at the table. We look over together just as she buries her face in her hands. I should have had another beer and ignored her.

“Celebrating?” he asks.

“Yeah, our wedding anniversary. Third. It’s where we met. So listen, kinda odd to see a grown man out and about with a red balloon, don’t ya think?” Time to get the pervert on the defensive.

He looks up at the bouncing balloon like he forgot it was there.

“Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, / But bears it out even to the edge of doom.”

“Huh?” I say cleverly.

“Shakespeare. My Doris and I came to this spot for years.” A small child dodges between us trailing the smell of bubble gum and runs giggling into the crowd. “Just like you and your wife. For different reasons.” He tries a smile. “She’s gone, so I must remember him by myself. It’s all I have left.”

Whatever this guy is on about, I don’t think he’s out here to pick off stray kids, so I make to beat a respectful retreat. I whisper how I’m sorry for his loss and back away.

“Be careful crossing the street,” he says over his shoulder as he looks up towards the balloon. Then he releases it, and we watch it catch a draft and bounce between the air currents up, up through the canyon of buildings and out of sight. 

 He took his jacket off as soon as they came out to the street.

“Shouldn’t it still be a little chilly this close to April?” she asked as she squeezed his arm and opened the buttons of her sweater. “But, I’m glad we brought them. It was so cold in the movie, wasn’t it?”

He nodded as they stepped off the curb.

Glancing at the FAO Schwartz store as they crossed Fifth Avenue, heading to Lex and the subway, she said, “What should we get Denny for his birthday? FAO is closed now.”

“Mmm.”

At the next corner, as they passed a newsstand, she slowed to read the headline: “Suez Reopens,” and put her hand in his. “A trike? Isn’t he old enough?”

He shrugged and said, “Mmm,” again.

Passing the antique bookshop, she stopped. “Is anything wrong?”

“I hated it.”

“The movie we just saw?”

“Yeah. The movie we just saw.” He pulled his hand from hers. “What other movie would I be talking about?”

“It was so sweet.” She squinted, searching for the next words. “I thought you loved Paris.”

“Let’s go,” he took a few steps forward and she skipped to catch up. “I’m tired of post-war European movies. You know? They’re all dark. Gray. Depressing.”

“But that was about brightness and …” Squinting again, she said, “Sweetness. I said that before. I know, but that’s what it was. It was a sweet movie. And red. It wasn’t about the gray.”

“Not for me. It was silly and unbelievable. The kid was silly. And gray. And mean-spirited.”

“Pascal wasn’t mean-spirited.”

“Those boys. They were … rotten.”

“Maybe so.”

“No question.”

“Okay.”

“And that movie was gray.”

“I don’t feel that at all.”

“You’re always cookies and cream.”

The traffic on Park Avenue was much busier than before, and the usual street sounds were amplified by a flock of taxis unable to move and bleating their horns. An invisible siren moved close, the intrusion painful despite a bus blocking their view.

“Buses aren’t supposed to be on Park. What the hell is that doing here?”

“What do you mean ‘cookies and cream’?” She tried putting her arm in his but he stepped off the sidewalk without her. The creases in her brow deepened. “What do you mean?”

“You’re Miss Goody Two-shoes. You can’t find fault with anyone. It’s like Thumper’s mother was your first teacher.”

The hint of a smile that had remained on her face was gone. “What do you mean? What are you talking about?”

Sighing deeply, he stared as the bus slid past them, and then said, “Never mind. It’s not important.”

“I don’t understand where you’re going with this.”

“Yeah. Well.”

“I guess if a red balloon came down right now and stayed in front of you, you’d just walk away.”

“You’ve got that right.”

“Maybe that’s what this is all about.”

“What do you mean?”

“You haven’t been happy with me. With us. For some time. We hardly ever have sex. Only after you’ve had a few drinks.”

He moved his face up, his nose almost pointing at the sky, and peered down at her. She hated when he did that—his patrician genes showing, she sometimes said—and he knew it. Then he looked at his watch and she started crying.

“What’s that all about? What’s with the crying? People are watching.”

“It’s over, isn’t it?”

“What’s over?”

“Us,” she pulled a tissue from her sweater pocket and dabbed at the corners of her eyes. “Us,” she repeated. “Who is she?”

“What?”

“Who?”

Now, he took her arm. “Look, let’s go home and talk.”

This time she didn’t cry, but she knew.

His nose moved up again.

It was over.

Joe wanted a reason to live. He was sitting on the corner of Lexington and 53^rd, surrounded by his few worldly possessions and a cardboard sign that read, “Disabled Veteran, Please Help” propped up against a metal jar with a few coins in it. He walks with a permanent limp after taking shrapnel in his left leg, but the physical pain he can live with.

Last night he woke up in a cold sweat, kicking and cursing, trying to escape the memories of the broken bodies and the sounds of artillery when he heard someone say, “hang on, old man.” Old man? He will be 36 in November. Once fully aware, he was grateful that the passerby didn’t kick him out of a sound sleep to call him a baby killer like the guy did last week.

The flashbacks have been getting worse and the man from the church who brings him sandwiches said he could only help him if he stayed at the shelter. Joe briefly considered it, but not now. It’s 11:49 on August 17^th, 1976.

Since Joe returned from his two tours in Vietnam, he’s been spit on, kicked, and mocked. He fought an unpopular war and saw his buddies die. He wished he died too. He didn’t come home to a hero’s welcome and was shunned by the country he fought for. He hated the protesters who burned their draft cards and went off to college to avoid fighting for their country. But Joe had a plan, soon he will know if he will clean up his act or walk to the top of the General Electric building, and jump. One red balloon will determine his fate.

His last chance at life was Sarah, although she had no idea that was the case. They met before the war, but those two weeks in the summer of 1966 felt more real than anything that took place since. Sarah worked at the Jersey shore. She spun the wheel as players put dimes on the numbered board hoping to win candy or a small stuffed animal. Joe was there with his single mom, staying at his aunt’s summer rental trying to ignore the fact that he’d be leaving the following month. Joe played that stand until Sarah noticed him. Later that night they kissed on the beach after they watched the sunset. At first, he was afraid she wouldn’t show, and that he looked ridiculous standing there with a red balloon with a heart drawn in black marker on it, but she was fashionably late for their first date. Sarah’s only flaw was that she was late for everything.

Sarah and Joe exchanged a few letters that stopped completely after two years. When Joe came home on his medical discharge, he went to the address she gave him so long ago. He heard the commotion before he spotted her in the park at a rally wearing a t-shirt, ripped jeans, and carrying a sign that read, “Stop the War.” He didn't know Sarah had demons of her own and had spent years in and out of rehab. Joe took the first train he could back to New York and staked a claim to his corner, where he has been living since.

Long ago they were two young kids with a dream; they would reconnect ten years from the day they met at noon. They would rendezvous on 53^rd Street and release a red balloon to communicate their love is still intact. He didn’t have a balloon, but if she came, he would find her. He didn’t want her to see him like this.

Joe knew it was a long shot and when his watch read 12:00, he left his corner and headed the few blocks that would seal his fate. He never looked back, not to see the red balloon floating in the breeze just two minutes too late.

The sky was choking on itself, dusty orange and full of haze. They were blaming the forest fires in the north, but Robin suspected it was just mirroring her feelings. She had always been close to the sky. It was probably due to all the time spent wishing she could fly away.

Her favorite spot was devoid of life today. Most of the small cafes up and down the street had dragged their chairs inside as if the lifeless plastic needed to breathe. Robin fingered the dull tablecloth in front of her. It sported a faded tapestry print. A barely recognizable peacock stared out at her balefully, once vibrant colors rubbed almost clear from years of use. The picture bird's yellow eye no longer held the intensity it used to possess. That seemed fitting.

She had set up the call for noon, blaming a busy schedule. In reality, she had wanted to take it outside the office and away from her apartment. She had expected the restaurant to be hopping on a Friday. She had not counted on the smoke.

The only other patrons were a man and a young girl. The father was scrolling on his phone. His T-shirt was dusty with a collar that had long ago lost its dignity, now hanging loose and stained with a yellow ring. The girl needed a haircut, her dark eyes fixed on a ribbon that ran from her thin fingers to a red helium balloon a few meters above her head.

The cell phone rang at noon on the dot. Her step-brother was punctual.

“Robin, are you there? It’s Steven.”

She realized she had answered without saying anything. Her fingertips were slippery with a sudden sheen of sweat as she cleared her throat.

“So, it’s done?”

“Yes ... Dad is gone. It happened as planned yesterday.”

The word Dad fell awkwardly from his lips. Robin had her father's eyes, chin, gift with words, and his propensity for self-destruction. It was surreal that cancer had finally prompted a final, yet sterile, goodbye.

“I don’t know what to say, Steven. Was it quick?”

“Everything happened as planned. The staff were very nice.”

A grey-looking waitress visited the other table bringing the man a beer. The girl watched him take a sip. She was winding the string of the balloon around her arm. Around and round, tightly up to her elbow.

“He left you something. A note. Robin, I know things were difficult for you with your father, but I wanted to send it to you.”

Difficult. So difficult. Robin could not even conduct a phone call about the man in her home for fear some essence of him would linger, in the closet or under the bed, coming out at night, smelling of tobacco and whiskey. The next would have to be done carefully, like a bird navigating an updraft.

“Steven. I want you to know I am not mad. I left that behind years ago. It’s just ... if I read the letter, it is like he gets the last say, and I’ve already heard it.”

“Robin, I ... I always believed you. He changed a lot when he got older and never had a chance ... I think it is an apology.”

“I think it is too, Steven. It’s just that he was never very good at it. I think I will take the thought and let the words go, OK?”

"Robin, I understand."

“Thank you, Steven, and goodbye.”

The little girl suddenly held her arm to the sky. She giggled as the string unwound itself, and the balloon sailed free. The man put down his drink. The three of them watched the red orb as it floated between the buildings and into the clouds beyond.

Robin breathed deeply, only then realizing she had been holding her breath, perhaps for the last 20 years.